There was an almost overnight shift from "ewww, online people are weird strangers" to "the Internet is just digital real life". For years it was the first, and then as mainstream popularity hit, it was like a switch flipped and suddenly the Internet was "cool" and just like comics and superheros, everyone acted like they were a fan all along.

It was kinda jarring tbh. All the things that got you labeled a nerd and a geek(negatively) were suddenly good things. I think it mostly had to do with the tech surge and people seeing it as a valuable thing now.